Last night, a couple of Celtic Twitter posts went up about Ange Postecoglou’s first season team. I found the information they shared to be incredibly interesting.
Since those signings, coincidentally or not, from the time Mark and Peter Lawwell assumed positions at Celtic Park, the club has sold more than £75 million worth of talent from the players signed in that singularly successful transfer period.
I can’t remember, and no one I’ve spoken to about this can remember, a more successful transfer spell in a single campaign. Either one of those windows could be considered exceptional on its own, but taken together, they paint a staggering picture of what a successful window looks like that no one who supports the current transfer policy can possibly argue against.
During what we think of as the first Peter Lawwell era, Celtic operated a transfer policy that often left managers frustrated and fans infuriated.
When he announced he was walking away from the chief executive’s job—whether sacked, mutually consented, or whatever words they used inside the club at the time—in the aftermath of the COVID campaign, there was rejoicing among people like me. We clung to the hope that we might see a fundamental shift in how we did transfer business.
And then, in the first year without him, we did. We handled transfer business in an entirely different way, and far more efficient, way. Those two windows didn’t just produce an outstanding Celtic side, arguably the most exciting Celtic team any of us has seen in years, but one which added to the books bankable assets worth in excess of £100 million.
It’s true, in two windows, when someone other than a bean counter, a penny pincher, a low-baller was in charge of the so-called strategy—when that was in the hands of a manager building towards his own vision—we didn’t just produce a team that won five trophies out of six.
We produced a team worth a nine-figure sum of money.
On an intellectual level, we all knew this was a fact. We all knew that we had produced a special Celtic team, one full of high-value players. But to see it laid out, to see that we have actually brought in £75 million plus in sales from players bought in that single campaign, and to know that we still have Carter-Vickers, Hatate, Kyogo, and Maeda on the books—all of whom are capable of further inflating that figure by eight-figure sums—is stunning.
There have been four completed transfer windows since, and we are currently in the final stages of the fifth. This is where the board’s behaviour should worry even some of the people who sat around that table grinning at how smart they are.
The transfer strategy they have overseen in those four windows has not, as of yet, produced a single footballer who looks capable of achieving an eight-figure fee. There is virtually no major resale value in any of the signings from those first four windows, except perhaps Alistair Johnston.
Only the two players signed last January—both at the explicit demand of Brendan Rodgers, Idah and Kuhn —seem destined to command a long-term place in the squad. Bernardo, signed last summer and we just paid good money to make that permanent; he may or may not eventually become a player on the level of Matt O’Riley. He certainly isn’t yet.
So how they can believe that their strategy is the be-all and end-all when all the successful transfer business the club has done in recent years has been in relation to those two transfer windows, when the strategy they follow was rejected by Ange Postecoglou and those around him?
I do not know the answer to that. It makes sense to someone, I’m sure, but I can’t personally figure out what the thinking behind it is.
Not one of the signings in the last four windows—not one—has come in and supplanted a player who was already in the team.
When we brought in Maeda, Hatate, and O’Riley in the January window of that season—the one board apologists always tell us is nearly impossible to operate in—each and every one of them went straight into the side, just like all the other players Ange signed.
If the point of the “strategy” is to find and develop players to sell for big money, it is a failure. If it’s intended to strengthen the team, it is an abysmal failure; any “strategy” which ends up with Greg Taylor unchallenged at left-back and Liam Scales in our central defence cannot be called anything else. If it’s designed to lay the long-term foundations of a team, it has massively missed the mark. We had the foundations of a team.
Lawwell, Nicholson, McKay, and the rest have raised £75 million selling those off, and here’s the thing to understand: they have put nothing in their place, not in terms of the team and not in terms of our future possible sales.
When Carter-Vickers, Hatate, Kyogo, and Maeda are gone—at least two of them are virtually certain to move on in the next 12 months—you tell me what’s left?
This is a road to nowhere we’re on with these people running the show.
The Celtic supporter must keep faith in one another. We do have the power to make things happen and we could make things happen quickly. This Celtic board or any Celtic board are nothing without the supporter’s. We need to rally together and get this people out of our Club. A couple of years ago the future was looking bright, European success was on the horizon and the great nights at Celtic Park looked just round the corner. It’s not difficult to drive these people out of our Club so let’s get the good times back and do something about it. We are sitting back and watching this parasites dismantle our Club right in front of our very own eyes. We need to stand up and be counted
In my view most of us are aware of, and sickened by, the shenanigans going on in the boardroom. Two words I’d say put together can resolve this once and for all.
UNIFICATION and ACTION.
The Celtic support IS the club and together we can force permanent change, but only together. So come on all you bloggers, supporters and shareholders, get your heads together and DRIVE the current shower OUT and ensure they stay OUT and are never replaced by similar scum. Radical change versus failed conservative policy as you so clearly pointed out, James. Who’s really up for it?
James, for my own mental health and wellbeing, I’m going to have to stop reading your blog: not because I disagree with you, but because you have it spot on and it just makes me even more depressed and angry at those idiots running our club. Board arselickers like Paul 67 of CQN, calling people like us “bedwetters” because we want our team to be as good as it possibly can be, infuriate me as much as those clowns on the board. As long as we have idiots like P67, we have no chance of ousting the clowns or at least changing our “strategy”. Why was Dom McKay sacked? Was it because he had a different strategy? One that concentrated more on improving the football team than the dividend payout?
I despair for our club.
Don’t despair for the club mate, these guys are only hired puppets, they’re not even custodians. It’s their mistaken view that they are the club that has got us here. I love the club. I care about the club. The club will survive these leeches as it has survived other disreputable bastards and incompetents over the years.
James absolutely spot on as with all of your blogs relating to the board if this transfer window turns out to m
be the disaster that we think it is going to be will you call for a boycott of all home Champions League games and also all merchandise as this board have to learn that they can’t get away with pissing all over us and you would definitely have 5he gravitas and respect to make that call
Get that lawwell and Nicholson to fuck out of our club lawwell has been there to long he’s not interested in the fans either only our money so its time to stop putting money into these rats because they keep for themselves its getting boring watching the transfer windows fly buy and our board saying we tryed toget him they are dirty lying bastards get they rats out now..
I won’t be forking out £200 for CL package I’ve just paid £650 for my seasonticket scunnered with the board. If Celtic are weaker when window closes than last season and celtic finish rock bottom in CL group with scales and taylor at the back then board must be hounded out. Fans invest theyr hard earned cash into celtic to see best team on park as possible and to be entertained we don’t go to celebrate having 100m in a bank account. Board scanners me.
As long as the fans keep filling the seats the Board will not change anything.
Does that include pre Ange purchased players like French Eddie, Ajer and Christie?
It does not.
I’d be be b interested then to see the transfer in figures to get a net profit. I guess I’d include wages to those players particularly the ones that came in, got wages spent on them and then we had no return. Point being to validate net profit and whether this young project development strategy has had much value
Total nonsense from you James
Great. I am eagerly awaiting your case for the defence.
Let’s have it.
Bang on the money with this James. Always enjoy your articles, but this one really hits the mark. Which brings me no pleasure at all, because in order to change the situation, either the board members need to hava a damascene conversion,… or we will need to go through a catastrophic event which pushes them out.
Or do you see another resolution here?
With regard to MOR, reading on MKDon sites that they expect £7.5m of a sell on fee. Now I don’t know if this is true but if it is then a couple of things:
1. Brighton have just validated MOR’s value at £25m (ignore any possible add-ons).
2. The Celtic board have accepted £17.5m net for MOR – so we have effectively taken a hit on a player asset to put money in the bank.
Unless the board are going to invest that money in players the manager wants and can improve the team it makes no sense to me whatsoever and arguably directors are in breach of their fiduciary duties.
Joe, first of all on the numbers, if we accept that the baseline selling value is £25M and that Celtic originally paid £1.5M for him, then the sell £7.5M would represent round about 32% (on a profit of £23.5M). I very much doubt that our board would have sanctioned such a ludicrous sell-on for a player. I’ve seen 10% mentioned which would make the value £2.35M on the same figures, which seems a lot more likely. I have no idea whether any of the numbers here are accurate, or if there is actually a sell-on for MK in the first place.
On the dereliction of duty I think you’re off as well, we can hardly say we value this player at £25M, but we have to pay MK Dons such and such so you have to add on 10% as well. It’s just the way it works now, and we’ll have our own sell-on in the agreement with Brighton.
We are a selling club.
The board see their model as recruit , develop , sell
They are not interested in building and keeping the strongest team , never have been.
We are being fattened up for sale . I am sure there is an agenda for that.
I’ve got a lot of faith in BR, and although like us all he’ll be disappointed to lose O’Riley, I’m sure he has been planning for this loss and planning accordingly. Eleven thirty on Friday will tell us whether this board has backed the manager enough. That will be the time to judge, You’ve got to remember this board sanctioned bringing in Edouard, Van Dijk, Forster, Wanyama and all of Ange’s signings which isn’t too bad a recruitment record. Granted they spent pretty big pre Covid season on Ajeti and Barkas and brought in Shane Duffy on a loan deal with a big wage, whilst they held onto assets such as Edouard, Ajer and Christie. In retrospect these turned out to be wrong decisions, that season was a disaster and I think we all know our management team didn’t cope well with those Covid times.
I can understand some of the concern, but time will tell, and by the end of the week things will be clearer.
Michael – I share your confidence in our manager, it’s our board I don’t trust as far as I could spit them. We will soon see whether the rumours of midfield reinforcements have substance.
The board have no excuses – with the Champions League and Sevco games we can offer a minimum of 12 premier fixtures (and I would add Hearts and Aberdeen away as games that trump many EPL games) to attract players and that’s before home games in front of +55,000. That’s attractive to professional players in plying and promoting their careers.
100% agree. The problem is that fans are fickle.
Winning on the pitch counterbalances the failures
off the field.
We need to protest from a position of on field strength,
if as we all suspect, the pattern of downsizing & lacklustre
leadership continues.